


Spirit of Storms

by mementomoe



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Getting Together, Humor, Shit she's hot, Time Travel Gone Wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mementomoe/pseuds/mementomoe
Summary: Layla didn't know what to expect when she joined Doctor Todd's research group. Especially with his odd promise of teleportation.She didn't expect she'd end up on a ship known as theSpirit of Stormswith an infuriatingly gorgeous Pirate Captain, Victorine Albert.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).



> The names of the two main characters, along with Doctor Todd, were picked through some randomizers. Of course, when I got the name Layla Saab, I laughed out loud, because it's Arabic for "Night Morning." The fact Layla is my Astro Professor's daughter's name definitely endeared me to it.

It was not her first choice of lab to do grad work in. Layla Saab was an astrophysicist, and had wanted to test Seyfert Type 2 Galaxies with Doctor Leblanc. Unfortunately, Leblanc didn’t have any openings that year for Layla to join, so she ended up with Doctor Jeff Todd. The man was known as a bit eccentric at her university, both as far as some of his scientific ideas and his behaviours. This time, it was teleportation.

The math had been interesting. She almost didn’t regret ending up as one of his graduate students in his lab. The matrices were amazing, and the research seemed well-cited. She had double-checked, and done the simulations requested of her and the other grad students. It seemed to work. The small inanimate object tests went fine, but now they decided to scale it up. It wasn’t publicly announced. After all, Doctor Todd’s reputation was not likely to help the news.

She walked in that day, and looked around the room. It was properly sterilised. Two cylinders were at the two back corners of the room, both the same white as everything else in the room. They stood at about two meters each, with a radius of one meter at the widest point. The insides of the cylinders were coated with a conductive gold foil. They both had folded doors that would be locked airtight. The doors and the ceiling were from the ground to about one-point-eight meters high, enough to fit most people, and fairly thick. The inside maybe had a diameter of point-five to point-seven-five meters, which normally would be fine, but she had to wear a containment suit, just in case, especially with the pressurization levers by the doors. A bit old school in Layla’s book, but still looked great.

Of course, the lucky volunteer for this great experiment, chosen by a draw by the doctor, was Layla herself. She didn’t need all that height, as she barely passed one-point-six meters in height. She looked around at the others in the lab. Jonah and Laney were running diagnostics on the attached computer, along with failing to hide their relationship everyone knew existed. Mei spoke with the Doctor about some tests of her own, though Doctor Todd didn’t seem to care. He turned away as soon as she got close.

“Ah, Miss Saab. How is my favorite lab rat, today? How do you feel?” Doctor Todd laughed. It was a joke for them. Several eccentricities endeared her to the professor, especially as he expected nothing but the best from his grad students.

Layla smiled at the all that. “I’m feeling pretty good, though I suppose Laney or Jonah could run some diagnostics on me. I don’t think the computer needs two people on one keyboard.”

Jonah whispered something in Laney’s ear and walked over. “I’ll get the basic diagnostics, I think Eli is coming for a few other things.” He took one of the clipboards and some paper and pen. “We have a machine for blood pressure and pulse, right? And a thermometer? I swear you got some on loan from the medical department for this.”

Mei pointed to the autoclave. “I needed to make sure this all was sterile, Jonah. But anyway, Doctor, please, we’ve only used inorganic objects in the past. Yes, we got that coat hanger back, but I thought I detected some rust that wasn’t on it before.”

Doctor Todd just laughed. “Mei, you don’t need to worry. That spot was there to begin with. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Jonah cleared his throat and distracted her from Doctor Todd’s talk with Mei. “Sorry Layla, I just need to get your pulse and temperature, among everything. It’s to make sure there’s no side effects when you step out.”

She sat down. “I’m not diabetic, but don’t forget to take my blood sugar level. I fasted, as Doctor Todd requested.”

Jonah just laughed “I’m sure you’ll be a pincushion by the end of today. And success or failure, we’re heading out for drinks afterwards. You wanna go?”

“Depends. Is it that bar at Ponce and Fifteenth with the killer mocktails? Because I love that place and don’t mind being DD there.”

“Nope, sorry Layla, if you’re the test subject, you get to have a chance to not be the driver. I got one of those ride services with an app, and they’re pretty good. You’ll deserve a real drink.”

Jonah knew how to make things better. He was more a chemist, but after he came in for some tests on the early objects teleported, Doctor Todd wanted him around full-time for the teleportation experiments. It didn’t hurt that he was relatively chipper most of the time, so everyone liked having him around.

“Hm, you’ll have to remind me about that fruity cocktail you like. The one with the honey and rum. That always looked delicious.”

“She’s all clear, Doctor,” Jonah said. “We can suit her up and get this test going.”

Laney cleared her throat. “And the program’s running clean, so we’re good here too. All systems are go when you’re ready, Layla.”

“Jonah, don’t forget the things the med students are going to get. I just hope Todd doesn’t try to recruit them.”

“I heard that, Layla,” Doctor Todd said. “And I absolutely will recruit them. Their name will probably go on the paper anyway.”

Layla heard Mei sigh at those words. Layla didn’t know what to think. At least she would be getting her first published work, even as a third or fourth name on the paper for all the work she did. Maybe she could apply what she learned to Astrophysics. She could get a job applying everything to building crafts for JPL, or just using the physics involved with regards to stars and galaxies. If it can be done in a lab, there had to be other uses for it.

The student, a nurse practitioner, showed up with needles and some more tools. She had to go through her blood pressure and pulse again, after the med student said he didn’t trust Jonah’s measurements, and had about 100 ml of blood drawn for test comparisons. A quick prick on her finger showed she had a decent level of blood sugar. She wasn’t surprised.

“Time to suit up,” Layla said. Doctor Todd turned his attentions to the med student, the same way he did when Jonah showed up two months ago to test the chemical composition of that coat hanger Mei had brought up.

The suit itself was huge. Something of a radiation containment suit. They didn’t use anything radioactive, at least, nothing too radioactive, but it still was good to give her a personal pressurized suit, just in case something was odd with teleportation. A pocket dimension without air or something. The models didn’t seem to predict that, but it was better safe than sorry, so a contamination suit and her own tanks of air built in were required. It definitely made the Teleportation tube feel a lot tighter than it was.

She was quite capable of the first few steps of putting on the suit. She wore comfortable shoes so she didn’t need to attach the boots separately from the pants. With Freddy free of any other duty, he put the chest and arms on. She could feel the weight it put on her shoulders as the top locked with the pants. After a quick test to make sure everything was properly aligned (a bend of her elbow and shrug of her shoulders) the gloves came next. He put the headset on her. They didn’t need much of a test.

Finally, the tanks were connected and the helmet added. Each time, she could feel the metal at the joints against her body. She walked at a slow pace, with Freddy by her side. “Need any last jokes?” He asked.

“Activating Interlock, dynotherms connected?” He couldn’t see her face behind the mirrored surface of the suit’s helmet, but she grinned as she said that.

He laughed at those words as he positioned her where she should be. “Y’got the headset still on?”

She heard a bit of an echo, so it had to have been. “Roger, Jonah. You all hear me through others?”

Each went through the steps. Jonah closed the tube as he left. It was a good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic. The point-seven-five meter radius was tight while she was in the suit.

The chatter was what she was used to, pressure of her tank, pressure inside both tubes, and outside as well. Temperature. First words always seemed so dramatic in the past. First words on the moon, or first words after any milestone, really. Yet this was just… technical.

“Miss Saab,” Doctor Todd said. “Mind if you explain what’s going on in there? You can be as fancy or casual as you like.”

“Well, I can breath,” she said. It wasn’t fancy and articulate. “Still looks like the inside of a tube. Anything start yet?”

“We haven’t started anything except the recording software,” Laney said. “So don’t say anything you don’t want recorded as your last words.”

She did her best to just describe everything. The way the inside of the tube lit up, mostly just something fun, for purposes of they were all nerds and wanted to make star trek jokes. She tried to think up something clever for coming out the other tube. Not “beam me up, Scotty.” As much fun as it would be to turn a malapropism into a proper quote for the ages, she would be on the wrong end. And it would be a terrible set of last words if everything was wrong.

She settled on some really good words, but the light got too bright. “Hey, what’s going on?” she shouted into the headset. “Cut the power!”

However, the response didn’t calm her. There was static. She could hear Doctor Todd behind it all, but his she couldn’t understand. It kept getting brighter and brighter. She closed her eyes and tried to cover the visor with her arms.

This was not how she wanted to die. Would there even be a body for her family to decide how to treat? Or would they have to pick something symbolic?

Her back hit something. It didn’t seem very hard, and she didn’t hit at a high velocity. It did push back some.

Water. She hit water. Well, the earth was mostly water when it came to the surface area, so, hopefully, she was on earth somewhere, and they could find her.

“Todd, this is Saab. Wish you coulda warned me about the bumpy ride. I’m in some water right now, so I hope you’re getting this.”

The response was just static, though it didn’t quite sound the exact same as before. It sounded like there wasn’t as much.

“We need to adjust the model. I never thought I’d bounce somewhere first. Maybe that’s your rust issue, Meimei.”

Still just static. Oh well, that had been expected. They must have been out-of-range. She just was making the note to herself. Science was about testing and fixing models.

She tried to push herself up more It took a moment, but she could float in the suit. Layla was thankful for the small things there. Around her, for the most part, was just ocean. Lots and lots of ocean.

She could float in the suit, but it was pretty bulky, and half the time, she had needed someone to guide her when she wore it. Layla pushed her arms in the water. The suit compressed and inflated against the currents she made, but there was little in the way of actual movement.

It was a good thing that there seemed to be something coming towards her. A ship, probably, based on how quickly it grew. As the ship drew closer, she realized it was a sailing ship of sorts, some kind of historic rebuild. Were they filming some pirate movie over here? The water didn’t seem a nice caribbean blue. It was rather dark, in her opinion, and the inside of her suit cooled quite a bit. It was pressurized, and the seals seemed to hold, but she didn’t expect the suit to act as it did if she was someplace warm.

She heard noises, and a liferaft from the ship lowered. It took her a moment to realize that the liferaft came her direction, not just roughly towards her, but she was almost certainly the destination. Of course, she didn’t know just what to say. The test was supposed to be short, if she ended up someplace else, well, the NDA would be breached accidentally, and she would have issues getting home.

The people in the liferaft were speaking French. She wasn’t quite fluent in it, but it was the language she took as an undergrad. They spoke too fast for her to fully understand. If it was slower, she would at least get most of the conversation. As it was, she made out only the most basic understanding. Something about their Captain, and lightning was the first thing. There also was something she was certain was about her. About this “Odd Spirit.” The words weren’t exactly flattering. They didn’t know what to do with her.

Other than take her back, apparently, they knew for certain that was something they needed to do. She could hear that much. That was definitely bad news for the experiment. She was not in American territory, not if French was the language they all spoke. It was odd that they seemed so superstitious? She thought it was too cold for the Caribbean, but maybe they were there. On some island. Not that there were any islands not frequently visited by cruise ships, so even something like this might have shown up in pop culture. Maybe this was some kind of fancy novelty boat tour, and they were just playing parts. It was a historic ship, so playing historical views. And it was catered for a French group, and in the French Caribbean, so they didn't speak English to not break character.

When they approached the ship, one of the men told her to climb up. She struggled to get a good handhold on all of it, so they ended up just pulling the boat up with all of them. The pulleys were old-fashioned. It must have been a seriously eccentric millionaire running this thing.

However, that idea shred itself once she saw the people on board. Even the most eccentric millionaire wouldn't personally dress like someone from the seventeenth century, right? There'd definitely still be a bar somewhere, and gorgeous women Layla could join the ogling of. This... it was wrong. Especially since there were a lot of people on-deck, and most of them stared at her.

Layla took her helmet off, mostly for visibility. The people in front of her certainly looked scared, too. It wouldn’t hurt if they saw a human face underneath everything. “I’m not an alien,” she said. It was the first thing that came to her mind. She was on a boat, she knew that much from the swell and roll of the horizon. She could also feel it through her suit.

A quick look around made it clear this was a sailing ship. Would the word “Alien” mean much to these people? Maybe it was a time-shift as well, but when?

One of them said something in a different language. French. She’d taken it in college, and she knew she could get around France just fine, though she wouldn’t consider herself fluent by any stretch of the imagination. It was something about her being a woman? Great. This was like in those films. Blah blah ladies are bad luck on ships, right?

Two of them went for her suit and tried to pull her out of it. The locks weren’t working, and she had a modest black shirt and some denim pants on underneath it, so she wouldn’t be _naked_ if they succeeded, and the clasps were tricky to get on and off, but she was offended all the same. Strip her? Hell no.

“ _Arretez_ !” Layla shouted. “ _Tu me fatigues_ ! _Je te mords_!” It was a bad threat. She wasn’t even certain if she got her French right.

The two stopped and stared at her. A few whispered a few things and she heard something about the Captain, someone named Albert. They grabbed her arms and started to pull her in a direction.

She shouted “ _Arrete, j'en ai ral le cul_!” and tried to fight against those who grabbed her. This was not a place — or time — she wanted to be. She didn’t sign up for time-travel. She didn’t exactly sign on for being a Todd’s guinea pig with humans. That was one of those short straw things. She shouldn’t have signed on to his experiments at all. Mei had been right and it was a terrible thing.

Layla might have had some extra mass thanks to the suit, but she still didn’t do much work with her arms, and couldn’t fight the two men who pulled her. It didn’t help that they had their sea legs, and she had just shown up a few moments ago and had to adjust to all this, fast. She kept tripping up, and the large boots of vulcanized rubber did not help. And of course there were stairs on the ship. It was a struggle to walk up.

She heard someone speaking in French. About _foudre_ … lightning. A woman that came through a shock. That was an interesting description. She was glad the teleportation device was opaque.Of course, it sounds like they moved towards it because there was something different. Lightning, but not quite.

“A spirit of storms?” the other voice said in French. “What might bring one upon us? Other than the name of our ship.” The voice was androgynous to her. A bit higher than she thought a captain would have, especially a captain with the name Albert.

She got to the top, and saw the captain. Broad-shouldered, with long, curly blond hair, but then she saw the captain’s face, and Layla realized she was wrong. These men weren’t superstitious. Not about women on a ship. Not when Captain Albert was a woman herself.

A very beautiful woman. Way hotter than any girlfriend she had in the past. She walked up and smiled. “I hope you fear me, Spirit. I am Victorine Catherine Albert. You found yourself here, and you’ll work for me. Even if you are the same as our ship. Welcome to _L'Esprit des Tempêtes_.”

She was just press-ganged onto a ship. A _pirate_ ship, most likely. She didn’t know when or where she was, other than probably before the Nineteenth Century. Yet the only thing she could say to all of this was...

“ _Merde_.”

 _Merde, elle est magnifique_!

 

* * *

The next few days were difficult for Layla. She was a scientist, not a worker, yet Captain Albert’s boatswain delighted in ordering her around. She heard some crew mention that Albert had threatened them if they dared to lay a hand on her, though. She had a corner hammock, and a couple piece of burlap nailed to the ceiling to give her some privacy. It would have been nicer if she hadn’t been ordered to do it herself.

And Captain Albert had commandeered her pressure suit. The woman thought it had to be worth something, but she needed to figure out the secret behind how it all worked. The Captain did not ask Layla, though. She had said she didn’t quite trust Layla yet with anything she came with.

She was usually polite when she spoke, and made it clear that it was not a smear on her. “You are a spirit of storms and have shed your outer skin like a selkie,” the Captain said. “I would love to keep you for a while, and learn what I can, at least, before I let you put your skin on and disappear.” There was a gleam in her eyes as she said that to Layla. The idea of selling the suit was still on her mind, and if it was sold, then to her, Layla couldn’t leave.

But what would that mean for Albert? Why would she want Layla here for good? A permanent servant that couldn’t desert her? A source of information? A lover? Layla had a laugh at that last one when it first came to her head. Captain Albert was beautiful, but Layla was certain she’d return, with or without the suit. And it felt… uncomfortable. She didn’t like the idea that the Captain would try to force another woman to do her bidding as a lover.

Layla’s knowledge of the French language got a workout. She was better at speaking it, and she could understand the fast chatter around her better, especially since she often heard them speaking about her. L’esprit was her. They always used the full name for the ship.

They were not good people. While her flag had no skull, swords, or bones, it was black, with white symbols. A mermaid and crossed thunderbolts.

“If we find something, spirit,” one of the crew members said. “You should stay back. You’re still bound to us, you know.”

She did not like that idea much. While she didn’t want to fight and do such things, the fact she wasn’t allowed because some of them thought she would find her suit and turn on them like some kind of selkie? Well, it almost made Layla want to take up a sword herself, even if she wasn’t trained in how to hold one, let alone properly fight with one.

The fight was relatively bloodless. The several pirates who boarded were a show of force, not a threat. Half left as soon as Layla’s deal was brokered, whatever it was. What goods she’d get in exchange for their safety. This time.

“You’re curious about this, Spirit,” Captain Albert said from behind her. It took her a moment to realize the other woman wasn’t on the merchant ship. “What bothers you? Should I have been rougher, perhaps?”

Layla shook her head. “I… what does this ship have? What use is it to you?” She looked over to the Captain. “And how might you do this so bloodless. Back home, legends of pirates are as cruel, though sometimes there’s those who just seek freedom.”

“Everything is easy to sell and trade for. Some are nice things, but ultimately it’s things that aren’t too expensive. Money requires certain locations that recognize it. Goods have value almost anywhere. As for how…” Layla had this easy smile on her face. “I’ve learned that just showing a threat, and speaking nice is good. Being a woman helps too.”

During the negotiations, she never left, it took Layla a moment to try and figure it out. “Some think it’s bad luck to have a woman on board.”

“That, but the fact that I am in control of a ship, and myself is what scares them more than if I were the same and a man.”

With those words, Captain Albert, Victorine, turned around and walked away from Layla.

Layla needed a few minutes to remember what she had done while watching the threats after that.

* * *

 

Oddly, the plunder she had watched ended up giving Layla a proper idea of just what time it was. She had arrived in late October of 1639. She didn’t know exactly why that year sounded familiar, until one evening when she had to go up to the crow’s nest. She hadn’t memorized just when stars rose and set, but a quick look revealed Venus rather close to the sun. It was a nice gibbous in phase.

There was going to be a transit of Venus. The first one recorded, in fact. That was one of the events that convinced Europe to change its models. To be at such a time, it almost made her want to stay where she was, at least for a few months. She could deal with all the work she went through. She may not have her name used, but the use of “Esprit” about her hand changed from aggressive and dark to almost a nickname. Maybe she could ask Freddy to call her that name when she got home.

She also knew they were in the Mediterranean. The color of the ocean hadn’t given it away, but they were also never more than a day or two from land, and the mix of flags she was lended itself to the Northern coast of the Mediterranean.  Layla had a thing for French ships, and occasionally Spanish or Italian. It was better to head them off at the source than try and intercept, it seemed. There was a port on an island, Mallorca, she thought, that was where Victorine and her crew traded the goods for supplies. Victorine was not allowed off the ship during such times, but Victorine had given her some spare clothes. They were simple enough. The wool they were made from was woven not too thick, but the shirt was undyed, and the pants and vest were dark in color. Nothing fancy, but it was serviceable, and helped keep her warm.

Layla wouldn’t complain about it for the time being.

It was two weeks after she had arrived, that Victorine approached her. “Spirit, I must admit your outfit has me confused. I am willing to take a risk. Please, share with me the secrets of that shell you wore when we met.”

It was fairly polite, and the defeat in Victorine’s voice tasted sweet and sour at the same time. That chance of return, even if Layla wasn’t certain it would work that way, was the pride Victorine had to swallow.

But a chance to explain things? Well, maybe it would make things a bit easier on her, and show herself as the scientist she was. “One condition, Captain,” Layla said. “Please stop calling me Sprit. I have a name. Layla Saab.”

The Captain sounded the name out, letting the vowels linger. “Leh-ee-lah Sah-ahb. It is lovely. Where might you be from to have such a name?”

The Americas was the answer of her home, but her family was Iranian. Layla herself was a second generation American, but she knew a smattering of her grandmother’s tongue. She was better at French, especially after two weeks on a ship speaking nothing else. “Far away, Captain. It’s a nice place. I have friends and family, and I studied during the day, and on some days, would go out and drink with friends.” Well, Layla didn’t much drink herself. Her friends all used services to get home, but she drove. Still, the atmosphere of those around her drinking, and a good mix of juices and sodas and crushed ice always helped. “I was—am—one of the ones that were best with the math. I just happened to be the one with the slightest build, so I got the suit when we wanted to test my math.”

She realized that she had started to ramble. While she wanted a chance to make use of such clear skies, and was in less of a hurry to return than the day she arrived, she did miss her home. Her grandmother chiding her for not practicing her Farsi. Jonah’s unironic and unabashed love of drinks some people deemed girly and unlike him. Laney and Mei sneaking her away one evening up to the mountains to stargaze, even without a proper telescope.

“So you are a philosopher, then,” Victorine said. “That seems quite nice.”

Layla couldn’t remember the word for Scientist. More, she wasn’t certain if that word made sense in the time she was in. _Le Savant_ —a scholar—was a good choice. “I’m a scholar,” she said. “An astronomer. I’ve done work with light and movement, though.”

She smiled. She was quite proud of her work in the lab, regardless of if it fit her thesis and desires for employment. If anything, the equations and tests were experience for the future, and some of them were ones she’d use elsewhere.

“Don’t spare any details then. Please tell me about them. I promise I can understand some of it, at least.” Her eyes were clear. Oh, how Layla wished she could do it, but for the moment, she got her gear back. “Though I must admit I’ll keep some away from you, Layla. You know, just in case. How much can you explain with just a glove?”

She couldn’t complain too much. “I can explain most of it with just a glove. If you are scared I’ll disappear if I put everything on, I can explain the rest just by showing it.” Layla hoped the suit wouldn’t be the key to leaving. It would be ridiculous, and somewhat unfair. Still, there were weeks until that transit, and she wanted to see it.

The Captain took her to a spot on the top deck and told her to stay there for the moment, as she gathered something to demonstrate with. For the moment, that small touch of niceness Victorine gave was something welcome, but also exploitable. Eventually, she could get more. Victorine came back with a glove. “It fell off the rest of your shell. Do you mind telling me what all this is?”

“It lets me breathe where I can not,” Layla said. “Like you, I breathe air. I’m human.”

Victorine laughed at that. She was not a pretty laugher, it was a big deep laugh that came from her stomach, and that made her seem fun to Layla. Someone she might hang out with while she and the others were at a bar together. “You’re human? No human would let a woman be a scholar. I practically had to fight to get a ship and that... “ She shook her head. “I won’t share that.”

She didn’t much want to share herself. “Believe or not, I am a scholar and a human. There are places where I can be both, along with a woman.” There were times she could be both. Maybe not here, but she still would try. “Still, I was running an experiment. A test. I didn’t know if I could breathe where I’d go, so I needed to be surrounded by Oxygen. I mean Air. It’s bad to not breathe, but the rest of the body needs air too.”

Victorine looked at her as she spoke. She could feel the Captain’s eyes’ intensity. She wanted to know what Layla meant.

Layla put the glove on. She’d need help to put on more, or at least of it to hold up. She wished she had more to illustrate the point, but that was all she had, so it would have to do. “It fits over like this. The big metal tanks are full of pressurized air.” She wasn’t sure just how much was left. She could check the gauge when she did it. “I won’t be able to fill it back up when we empty them, though, so they’d just be metal. Either Aluminium or Steel. I forget which I have.”

The captain smiled at those words. “Steel is valuable. I’m sure I could melt them down to make something more useful. Can we do that now?”

She had to pause, there probably was still oxygen in there, and at high pressures. It would probably just be a bomb in such a case. She just shook her head. “Just use it as part of the suit for some time. I think we have two or three hours of air left. The suit might have its uses.”

Layla knew she had to give information to Captain Albert, especially if she wanted things to be steady, but she tried to limit it. The fact it would be a bomb otherwise? Not something she’d share unless straight up asked in a way she couldn’t get around.

Before she could think of anything else to do, the glove on her hand glowed. She felt heat along her arm and tried to pull it off. What was going on? When she came there wasn’t heat. At least, not that much head. Just light.

She got it halfway off before it got too hot to hold, even though she didn’t hold the metal. It slipped back onto her hand and… through it?

The rubber was translucent and slipped through her hand. The clasp was red hot. Before it could hit her elbow and seer her in pain, it disappeared.

Layla cursed. That didn’t look good. She wouldn’t be surprised if the rest disappeared too. What just happened?

“Hey, we saw that lighting on the odd outfit,” one of the crew Layla didn’t recognize said. “Except it went up, not down."

She had thought before she would head back eventually. The hell she dealt with at first had calmed. Captain Albert was just looking for use, though conversations about where Layla came from made her eyes sparkle in ways she hadn't wanted to think about. Albert was a beautiful woman. Some of it was the fact she was a classical blue-eyed blonde with long, curly hair. The salt spray had washed some of the curliness out, but Layla liked the looser curls. It didn’t help that the woman seemed to have a lavender perfume somewhere in her room, and it mixed nicely with the constant smell of the ocean none of them could wash away even if they bathed.

That scent relaxed her some from the news. She was trapped, or would return later. Probably much later. Another part of her, much like the one that started to let her enjoy Victorine as a person, was glad she wouldn’t miss the transit. It was November 1639. She could stay another month or so and watch it. See if she could actually figure out the exact distances from experimentation, and not just from memory. That wasn’t found out until the transits in the nineteenth century, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t do it now.

And it explained why the coathanger had rust. Maybe it spent the time at the bottom of the sea.

* * *

Victorine stopped at a friendly port shortly after Layla’s containment suit disappeared. After checking, the clothes she wore when she arrived were still there, but anything that wasn’t organic had disappeared off them, so no metal, and no rubber.

As a consolation, perhaps, Layla was let off the ship while they gathered supplies to return. She didn’t have anywhere to go, and there was only so much she could teach. She could tell there were rules. There were places they wouldn’t take on. Ships they wouldn’t attack for goods. Victorine preferred only certain flags, a trade company. She’d trade the goods for supplies at this port, or others like it. As she left, Victorine gave her some money.

“It’s your share, Layla,” she had said. “For your hard work, and some more because you can’t go back.” Victorine seemed pretty sad when she said that.

While it wasn’t enough for the telescope she spotted, she did find some star charts. It wasn’t like the starfinders she used in school, which could be adjusted for the time of year and time of day. It was aligned at about forty degrees north, and had enough information that she would be able to locate where each of these stars would be. She also got herself a quill, ink, and paper. She could make her own notes. Maybe find ways to write trolling letters in Latin to other Astronomers and Physicists of the time.

Promise things to come with cryptic notes about Eta Carinae’s brightness, or a supernova in Andromeda. Both were well over 200 years away from happening, but maybe make a bit of a splash as some anonymous astro-nostradamus. Sooner than that would be hinting at the planets Uranus and Neptune. Maybe get one named after her. “Name one Layla, for it is a name I have always been fond of.” Oh yes, that would be something fun for future historians to find. She wondered if she could find Uranus and Neptune first, if she could get a turn with the telescope they had on board.

When she got back, Victorine looked over Layla’s goods. “You can write, Miss Saab?”

Layla felt a bit bothered by that question. “Well, not exactly with a quill pen. That will take some time for me to adjust to using. But I can read and write.” She wondered why Victorine was so skeptical of that. More than once, Layla had said she was as much from another time as another place. Had the Captain thought she lied? “I did say I was a scholar before. Being able to write helps with being a scholar in my opinion.”

Victorine just nodded her head. “Ah, good to hear. It would be nice, to have someone to help with something there. My memories, perhaps. You said you didn’t know of me. I’ll have to change that.”

“Would it get me out of boat-cleaning duty?” It was meant almost as a joke.

The captain smirked at that. “Aren’t you saucy, Miss Saab. Maybe I won’t give you that gift after all. It would have matched that set of star charts.” She had that same tone. Despite everything, Victorine tried to make her feel welcome, and help her accept what had happened. She had once said that she got what she wanted because she was a woman, and a woman who controlled a crew and herself. That scared other captains into handing things over enough that she needed only the barest use of force at times.

And it definitely showed in some ways. She was also keenly polite, not just to Layla, but her crew. They weren’t scared of her. Some even said they travelled off the ships they travelled after they were boarded just to see how Captain Albert ran her own. It showed in the way she treated Layla.

First some money she earned, though Layla wasn’t quite ready to think just how it had been obtained, and now another gift. “Well, I’ll give it to you if you write down my story for me. Let’s start now. Please come to my room, Layla.”

The way she said her name, it made Layla shiver. With everything gone, that one half-joking thought that Victorine looked for a lover came back at times. She thought it would be interesting, but at the same time, she knew nothing about Victorine that the woman didn’t offer herself. The other members of the crew were tight-lipped about their captain.

Of course, she did so. It wasn’t like she had anything to lose, and perhaps whatever Victorine got her would be good. “Your room is over here, correct?” She pointed to the door under the quarterdeck. That was always where the captain stayed in movies.

Victorine nodded. “It is indeed. Now, I believe you can lead the way. I don’t bar my door, since most of the crew know very well not to enter when I’m not there, and to not come in uninvited when I am.”

“And those that don’t?”

“Well, the others keep an eye on those. Should that not happen, I’m not as merciful to my crew as I am to those I steal from. Thankfully, very few these days do not respect me.”

Layla hadn’t ever thought of sneaking into her room before. She was in shock when she arrived and hadn’t seen Victorine enough to understand. There were promises and trades for her cooperation before everything had sunk in. Before she knew she was trapped. Layla put her hand on the door. “May I open your door, Captain?”

“For this, you need not ask. You don’t ever need to ask, Layla.” She had a smile on her face. A bit teasing in Layla’s opinion. A bit tempting. “You seem like a private person.”

Layla remembered that one of Victorine’s first kindnesses was  to give her curtains around the hammock in the corner, and one crewmember had said there were punishments for going past the curtains without her permission. It made her smile when she remembered overhearing that two days after the curtains went up.

With that, she opened the door. While the room itself was much nicer than the crew quarters in the hold, it wasn’t quite as fine as in movies. The furnishings had seen better days, with scuff marks and weathering on the desk and bed. The curtains and sheets she had were newer, but of something fairly simple. Hemp or wool, perhaps. The window out didn’t cover the full back wall, only about half the length, which made the curtains start only a touch further out.

“Please, sit at my desk,” Victorine said. “It should be a good surface for you. Let me know when you’re ready.”

Layla did so, not so much because Victorine offered, but because it made sense. Especially since she wasn’t quite adept at the dip pen. She had used fountain pens, which were similar enough in how to hold them, in the past, but ballpoints were just so much more convenient.

She dipped the pen into the ink and wrote something quickly. It was a mess, but at least it was legible. “Please, tell me what you want me to write. Just the words. You don’t need to explain to me.”

“Well, I want to be remembered. I’m a thief, a scoundrel, but I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to do it. My father…”

She had started to write down that note. What about her father?

“My father is… a fine man. We don’t agree on much, and it’s why I chose this life. After all, he gave me this ship.”

Layla looked over after she wrote down what was important. “He gave you this ship? Is he a merchant?”

Victorine nodded her head and walked over to her bed. “He’s one of the few traders who I do my best to loot from every ship. It’s not… not just his fault. See, some time ago, he wanted me to marry. I’m fine with the idea, and trusted that he’d give me some freedom of choice, but he wanted me to marry soon, not give me time to find someone I liked. He wasn’t going to force me to marry just anyone, but I was getting old, he thought. I don’t know why he changed his mind. I was a good merchant captain for him. Loyal. Hard-working.”

She knew the direction. It was not exactly the hang things up that normally happened, but it was something she wanted that he humored for a time, thinking she’d tire of it.

“As I said. Marriage and love are not things I’m against. Maybe one day. But I want time to find them. Time to court. I want them to let me love the sea as much as I love them. This isn’t just a passing fancy. I always looked at it from our home in Marseille. I was on a ship the first time when I was five, and land disappearing to just the horizon? Beautiful. The ocean is as well. My ship’s name is how I saw myself.”

Layla kept writing. Victorine was more poetic than she thought. True, she knew how to bother merchant captains. She had this air of control. This did nothing to change Layla’s view. She was in control. But it interested her to hear this.

“The way you speak of the sea, Captain,” Layla said. “It is the way I speak of the sky. I looked up from my home on clear nights, and saw the stars. I once wanted to travel among them, but it wasn’t possible for me.” She wasn’t the right size for a space suit. She knew height and weight were just  as important of qualities for an Astronaut.

“One day we’ll voyage among them as we do the sea,” Victorine said. “And please, call me by my name, Layla.”

Layla loved that hope. “I know,” she said. “But for now, looking up and wondering if any look back. Looking up and seeing a sea to explore is what I want most. So your story speaks to me, but your father. Do you ever worry?”

“He made his choice,” Victorine said. “And I made mine. Sometimes I hope we can meet somewhere in the middle, but I burned the bridge long ago. Every time I think of trying to stop, the captain I raid reminds me why I persist. It’s broken. Neither of us can make that first step. I don’t think either would listen.”

“Maybe one day you both will, Ca—Victorine,” she said.

“Thank you, Layla. I said there was something I got you, so I suppose I should deliver. I’m told you borrow our telescope and look to the stars sometimes. Well, it’s very much needed. It wasn’t inexpensive, but I did find a telescope for you.”

Victorine handed over a small box, inside was a copper telescope. It collapsed on itself with interlocking rings. It had a shine to it.

She took the box from her Captain and smiled. “I’ll treasure this gift. Thank you.”

* * *

The day came. It was tricky at first for Layla to decipher the exact day of the year she arrived, but once she figured it out, and managed to map the sky enough to figure out exactly where Venus was, the trickier part was counting to that day. She’d only see the beginning, but this transit, this was a big benchmark in Astronomy history. And she would get to see it, whether she ever disappeared, or she ended up trapped. The past few days, she worried she’d return before she got to see this event, but with minutes left, she was at peace. She wouldn’t leave. This time was her home, now.

This _ship_ was her home, now. She’d miss it if she had to leave. She would have to adjust to walking on land again, and while she missed modern clothes, there was something about what she was given, and the freedom she had on sea. Her personal telescope Vicotrine gave her. She had it set up to minimize the brightness of the sunset so she could watch.

“Why do you have half the telescope covered, Layla?” Victorine asked.

Layla jumped a bit. She’d been so focused on the dot on the edge of the sun that she forgot for a moment just where she was, even if she knew well what day it was. It didn’t help she was lost in thought.

“It’s a bit crude, but it decreases the light that enters, and makes it darker.” It was a bit of a simple explanation, but would work just fine. “It still resolves the same. Would you like a look, Captain? Just look at the sun.”

Victorine laughed and sat down next to her. “I wish you could teach me just how it works.”

Isaac Newton’s _Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica_ hadn’t been published yet. Not for another 29 years. There was some use of derivatives and integrals, but not in any languages she understood other than some work in Arabic. And nothing quite as thorough connecting them to science.

“I wish I could too. In a few minutes, we can watch Venus transit across the sun. That’s why I’ve decreased the light that comes in. It would work better if reflecting telescopes existed now.”

Layla felt Victorine’s curls fall on her shoulder. “I never understand what this world must be like. It sounds nice sometimes, and scary at other times.”

She smiled at those words. “It can be. I’m glad some things appeal to you.” Layla pulled herself away from the telescope and looked to Victorine. “Ah, would you like to look first?”

Victorine took the telescope and just looked up. “I… I think I see Venus up there. It’s not that big, but it’s there. Just to the side of the sun. It’s so small.”

Compared to the sun, yes, it was. And it was three times as close, approximately. She wouldn’t share that. “Yes, it is. I’m glad I ended up in this time period, Tori.”

The captain laughed at that nickname. “That’s a sweet name. I like it. I give you permission to call me that, La.” She paused for a moment. “You know Venus is the name of a goddess, right?”

“Yes.” She didn’t know what else to say. Tori called her La, and her cheeks were warm. Maybe there was a bit of a redder color on them. She didn’t want to ramble.

“The goddess of love and beauty, I’m told. Do you ever wonder what she looks like?”

Layla couldn’t think. She didn’t know what Victorine wanted to hear. “Well, like the paintings and sculptures, I suppose. Tall, womanly shape, long, curly hair, usually blonde, fair-skinned.” That was a bit of a lie. The image in her head that appeared had been Victorine. Blonde and Fair-skinned, yes, but loose curls mottled by salty winds, and skin darkened just enough by long days under the sun. Also much less womanly than the _Venus de Milo_ of Botticelli’s _Birth of Venus_. Wider shoulders, and a toned body. Still curves, but not as soft.

“I thought,” Victorine said. “At least, that’s what I believed some time ago. Recently, the image in my mind changed. Still a woman, but I think she’d have darker skin, darker hair. And she’d dazzle with not just her beauty, but with her words, just as beautiful, with promises that she wants to keep. She also has short hair, not long and curly like in the paintings.”

There was no denying what she said, but there had to be something else. Layla wanted to try and laugh things off, but she couldn’t. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

Victorine’s curls blew against her chin, and tickled her. Layla bit back the laugh. She set the telescope down and placed her hand on Layla’s far cheek.

She turned to face Tori. Tori took a deep breath as her brown eyes focused on Layla. She put a small smile on her face and finally spoke up.

“You are my Venus, Layla. I know it’s selfish, but I hope you never return to your time, or can bring me with you. I want to be by your side.”

That time, Layla didn’t hide the laugh. “You’re a pirate. You can be selfish, and I’m not sure I want to return. There’s so much going on in my field over the next fifty years. It’s not the most elegant time, but I like it. There’s also someone here that I want to be with. You.”

Victorine smiled. She didn’t ask before her lips pressed against Layla’s. Layla tasted the salt against her lips. It was distinctly Victorine, and she wouldn’t have her any other way. She had an ocean for a home, and skies clear enough to see stars even when on land.

When they pulled away, Victorine passed the telescope to her. “Watch your other Venus, Layla. I can be here for you later.” She kissed Layla’s cheek and stood up.

Layla took Tori’s hand. “No, please stay. I want to watch the transit, but I want to watch with you. It won’t take too long. Sunset is soon anyway.”

She sat back down. Layla relaxed her head on Victorine’s shoulder as she looked through the telescope at the transit of venus. This new life may not have been what she had signed up for, but discovering time-travel, even by accident, had been worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> A good friend helped me with the French, for the most part, though the name of the ship is admittedly Google Translate.
> 
> "Arretez" = "Stop (it)."  
> "Tu me fatigues" = "You're annoying me."  
> "J'en ai ral le cul" = "I'm really fucking fed up"  
> "Je te mords" = "I'll bite you"  
> "Merde, elle est magnifique!" = "Shit, she's magnificient."


End file.
